1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to beverage filter cartridges, and in particular, to a cartridge that attaches to a single serve beverage filter cartridge for adding a constituent to an out-flowing beverage and methods of making and implementing the same.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of automatic brewers currently exist in the market for brewing hot and/or cold beverages. Several of these brewers are for use with single serve beverage filter cartridges. Today, numerous different types of single serve beverage filter cartridges exist, which may be either disposable or reusable. Disposable single serve beverage cartridges have a significant impact on coffee sales.
In the manufacture of disposable single serve beverage filter cartridges, an impermeable yieldably-piercable cup-shaped outer container is provided with a filter therein containing an ingredient to be brewed. A foil type material is adhered to the top of the outer container to hermetically seal the resultant disposable cartridge and its contents. In use, the sealed cartridge is placed inside a cup shaped housing of a brewing machine followed by closing the brewer lid to entrap the cartridge in the housing. As the lid is closed, a tubular inlet probe on the brewer lid pierces the foil top of the cartridge, and a tubular outlet probe residing at the bottom of the housing pierces the bottom of the cartridge. The inlet probe admits heated liquid under pressure into a chamber of the cartridge having the ingredient to be brewed for the infusion thereof. The resulting brewed beverage passes through the filter into another chamber of such cartridge, from which it exits via the outlet probe for delivery into an underlying container (e.g., cup).
While these types of single serve beverage filter cartridges are replete in today's market, they are plagued by the selection and variety of ingredient flavors available for purchase. For instance, certain coffee brand manufacturers sell a limited selection of flavored coffees. This is in part due to customer demand, but largely due to manufacturing limitations and costs. In manufacturing single serve beverage cartridges containing a selected flavor of coffee, cross-contamination thereof with other flavorings or flavored coffee is highly undesirable. A contaminated batch of coffee typically yields an unsellable product that must be scrapped, thereby leading to increased manufacturing costs and lost profits. To avoid batch cross-contamination manufacturers often designate manufacturing facilities to single coffee flavors. This limits the variety of flavored single serve beverages the manufacturer can economically and feasibly produce.
Accordingly, there continues to be a need in the art for new apparatus, systems, and methods for flavoring or adding an ingredient to the liquid outflow from disposable and reusable single serve beverage cartridges.